Database access latency will always trump any language design issues, except in extreme cases. This article does make some of those cases obvious, especially since they are easily-overlooked programming mistakes.
Database access latency will always be an important factor of _latency_ .
That doesn't prevent anyone from coding stuff that requires 20 times less application servers while using the same amount of database (+caching) servers.
The very idea that because the DB call takes a while to complete, we can waste even more CPU cycles is a complete misunderstanding of real world use cases.
But then, the very use of PHP means that you don't give a shit about execution time or server costs at all.
That doesn't prevent anyone from coding stuff that requires 20 times less application servers while using the same amount of database (+caching) servers.
The very idea that because the DB call takes a while to complete, we can waste even more CPU cycles is a complete misunderstanding of real world use cases.
But then, the very use of PHP means that you don't give a shit about execution time or server costs at all.